James Coates

author

James Coates

1843–1933

Drawn to the strange borderlands between science, suggestion, and spiritualism, this late-Victorian writer produced practical handbooks that promised to make hypnotism, thought-reading, and character reading understandable to ordinary readers. His books capture a moment when popular psychology and the occult were often discussed side by side.

1 Audiobook

How to thought-read : A manual of instruction in the strange and mystic in daily life, psychic phenomena, including hypnotic, mesmeric, and psychic states, mind and muscle reading, thought transference, psychometry, clairvoyance, and phenomenal spiritualism

How to thought-read : A manual of instruction in the strange and mystic in daily life, psychic phenomena, including hypnotic, mesmeric, and psychic states, mind and muscle reading, thought transference, psychometry, clairvoyance, and phenomenal spiritualism

by James Coates

About the author

Writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, James Coates published a stream of accessible guides on mesmerism, hypnotism, thought-reading, physiognomy, and related subjects. Surviving catalog records connect him with works such as How to Thought-Read, How to Mesmerise, Human Magnetism, or, How to Hypnotise, and Self-Reliance.

Reference sources also describe him as a British writer on Spiritualism and spirit photography who contributed articles to Light and Two Worlds. Taken together, his work suggests an author interested in the meeting point of self-help, popular science, and the psychic enthusiasms of his era.

Today, Coates is remembered less as a mainstream literary figure than as a lively guide to the beliefs and curiosities of his time. Readers interested in occult history, early psychology, or the culture of hypnotism and spiritualism may find his books especially revealing.